


the kid, the future forthcoming

by anonymousAlchemist



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Coming of Age, Gen, M/M, expanded IMMENSELY from tumblr, in which taako grows up and makes bad choices, the taako backstory fic nobody asked for, trust me let me paint you a word picture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 02:02:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14178144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymousAlchemist/pseuds/anonymousAlchemist
Summary: Your mother was a saint and your father was a criminal, your mother was a no-name vagabond and your father was a prince, your mother is a dead woman and your father is a dead man and there’s no point in speculation. Here’s the truth of things: your sister is a liar and a cheat and a firebrand and she’s the only good thing in your life, and you’re a liar and a cheat and a skulking thief, and you’re going to be rich if you have to turn the entire world to gold to make that happen.You can do it, see. You’ve been learning transmutation.





	the kid, the future forthcoming

**Author's Note:**

> at this point when i say "im not gonna write something" you should just assume im gonna write it, i guess.
> 
> also please note that this story is "chose not to use archive warnings" purposely. i dont want to spoiler but taako makes not great decisions as a teen and i veer pretty close to what is often a giant pit of discourse.

Your mother was a saint and your father was a criminal, your mother was a no-name vagabond and your father was a prince, your mother is a dead woman and your father is a dead man and there’s no point in speculation. Here’s the truth of things: your sister is a liar and a cheat and a firebrand and she’s the only good thing in your life, and you’re a liar and a cheat and a skulking thief, and you’re going to be rich if you have to turn the entire world to gold to make that happen.

You can do it, see. you’ve been learning transmutation.

Things that are hard: chopping wood, carrying water, smiling when you don’t want to smile. 

Things that are easy: the way that one thing flows into another, the alchemy of cooking, how you and your sister switch places because no one looks closely enough to see that you do not have the same face.

Magic is just change, and you’re good at change, because half the time you answer to Lup and she answers to Taako — which is different from when the grownups in the caravan referred to Lup as “he,” though the two of you sort that out ay-sap. Magic is just the application of the fact that everything is everything else, and you get that, because you’re Taako, you’re half of Lupandtaako, you’re the kitchen boy, you’re whatever anyone needs from you because you need to eat.

The kids in their fancy academies ain’t got half as much motivation.

Sometimes you imagine wealth, going to school. Not having to read textbooks written in half-a-dozen dialects, borrowed from libraries on three different continents, getting haphazardly tutored by roving mages who more often blow themselves up than not.

You imagine not sharing a bed with Lup. The two of you squished together in shitty bunks in shitty caravans — it’s not a question, two half-grown scrawny elves, space is at a premium, and you dream of being able to sprawl. You love your sister and you’re a package deal and she’s the only living person in the world who cares about you — but you would like to sleep through the night without getting poked by her pointy elbows.

You imagine a sunlit apartment with two bedrooms and a full kitchen. You imagine a mansion with seventy four rooms and crystal chandeliers. Both of these things seem equally out of reach — you can’t imagine permanence, you can’t imagine belonging somewhere, having something belong to you that isn’t: the clothes on your back, your secondhand wand, your hat that you stole two summers ago. And whatever Lup keeps in her pack — you know what she keeps, her wand, her clothes, a lighter.

Lup’s fire thing should worry you. it doesn’t. She puts out matches with her fingertips. She always volunteers to start the campfire. She’s learning evocation magic from books even though everyone says she should cool it with the destructive stuff before she blows you both up. You nick salve for her blisters and don’t say a word. 

You think about: your dead aunt. your dead grandfather, your dead parents who don’t count because it’s not like you  _ knew  _ them. You think about all the houses you leave and leave and leave, and the fact that the caravan is the closest thing to continuity that you have. You think about grown-ass adults, people yelling at you, threat of no certain future. You don’t like fighting, see, fighting means it’s your skinny ass against someone twice your size and there’s only so much cleverness can help, and someday you’re gonna be grown, but here and now you’re a nobody with a wand that only listens to you half the time, a hat that falls over your eyes. 

If Lup can turn the flame from her lighter into a fireball, more’s the better. 

You’ve got your own tricks too; you’re halfway done with figuring out magic missile. Then no one’s gonna mess with you. You dream while sleeping under the dusky sky during the summer: someday the two of you will be out of here, someday the two of you will be somewhere else. An apartment, a boarding house, jobs in the city. No more caravans, no more dusty roads. 

Soon as you’re old enough to be legally employable – soon as you  _ look _ legally employable.

* * *

There’s plenty of nowhere places that don’t ask any questions, dingy little joints in the middle of cities on backalley roads, places with signs all in Undercommon, you know the type.

“You legal?” the guy asks, the guy who manages the restaurant, middle-aged, looks like a human-halfling mix, or maybe just a shortstack. You bristle, the set of your jaw sharp.

“We’re grown-ass adults, if that’s what you mean,” Lup says, and you can sense that she’s about to pull a hot one on the guy and then the two of you’ll be back at square one and busted for arson.

“Woah, didn’t mean it like that,” the guy says, putting up a hand. “Just wanted to know whether I’d get busted for lettin’ you tend bar.”

“We’re a hundred-seventeen,” you say. You’re eighty-three, turning eighty-four next month. Nobody knows what elven aging looks like, see, you’re using stereotypes to your advantage. Of course you look like jailbait, elves always look like jailbait. (That’s the defense fuckers always use in court, didn’t know she was a kid, officer, elves just look that way).

“Great,” he says. “One of you pony up with Jeb at the bar, the other’s gonna be on prep. Pick your poison, payday’s Thursday, cash only, eight dollars an hour, don’t like it, you’re welcome to take it up with the boss.”

Jackass says boss like he’s talking about his god. 

You nod. “Cool cool cool, we’ll start tonight.”  

It’s the work of a brief but significant glance to divvy up the jobs: Lup takes bar, you take kitchen cause your knife skills are killer and Lup actually likes talking to strangers — not that you mind it, but she likes it, see, and you don’t like washing dishes but within the week you’re graduated up to cutting, slicing, you know, the works. 

You’re pretty sure the place is a undercover mob joint. Manager Jackass talks about the Boss, the servers talk about the Boss, the cooks talk about the Boss. You sneak a glance over the accounts when you’re chatting with Lup at the bar and nothing seems to add up. 

This is not your problem. 

The job’s solid, see, it’s a double handful of cash every Thursday, it’s the dingy studio apartment with light streaming through the windows in the morning, it’s being able to walk through the city and feel like nothing can hurt you, like the world is your oyster, like if you want to buy a cup of coffee, you buy the damn cup of coffee. 

You start drinking coffee. You drink it with three sugar, no milk. Lup drinks it with no sugar, splash of milk. You realize you really like coffee shops, you like sitting in a corner for hours and reading old magic books or cheapo adventure novels that you pick up at the secondhand store. Sometimes students from the University try to chat you up and you mostly talk shit at them. If you’re feeling nice you talk shit  _ around  _ them, you run circles around their arguments and argue about the conjugation of  _ valeo _ and how that affects casting. They think you’re a student too. 

You think they’re a buncha naive idiots who don’t know how the world works. But nobody except for Lup was ever interested in hearing your opinions — kid, shut up and get back to work; kid, get your nose outta those books and come help me with dinner — so these assholes who take your vitriol as an invitation to argue, you can’t help but like them. 

There’s a guy who you talk to a lot – he’s an undergrad whose name you don’t know, who wears glasses and has a stutter and lets you borrow his books, who drinks espresso like it’s water. He has morbid taste in literature but you kinda like it. Twenty-something years later you’ll point at him and shout  _ YOU!  _ at him in the lab on the Starblaster and he’ll look at you and say  _ Taako, I thought you knew _ , and you’ll say  _ Jeez humans age fast _ , cause he looks nothing like the boy you used to snap at, and Barry will laugh at you and tell you that you were the highlight of his weeks, this weird elf kid who was always down to ramble about magic. You’ll tell him you thought he was a nerd and you still think he’s a nerd, and you won’t tell him that you always appreciated him taking you seriously. 

But that’s weekends. Weekdays you get up late and slink to work with your sister yawning beside you, rolling up the window shutters, saying hi to Jeb, Harry, Trev, Molls, etcetera, whoever else of the joint’s motley crew is on opening shift. You take all the shifts you can – you need all the cash you can carry. Lup wants to transition and you want a new swanky wand, and the two of you have a stash under your floorboards with your savings squirreled away. Sometimes you transmute pieces of trash into amethysts and rubies — it’s illegal, but there are places that pay without asking questions and if it makes you nervous to stand there and haggle, well, Lup’s got your back so you’re not scared. You get into a couple of fights — late nights, you look like a scrap of nothing, and everyone’s always surprised when you’re  _ vicious.  _

Then work is, well, it’s work. You wear sensible shoes cause your feet ache after hours on your feet, you call out orders, you saute, you grill, you jullienne — whatever they need from you. Lup chats people up, makes drinks with fancy flourishes, gets tipped by sweaty middle-aged businessmen, pockmarked teens with fake IDs, and sometimes when it’s late and nobody’s ordering anything you hang out with her at the bar and grin at strangers and get flirted at too. It’s kind of fun. 

Then the Boss swings by when you’re on shift. 

* * *

You don’t realize he’s the Boss at first. He doesn’t advertise himself. He’s a sharply besuited half-elf with killer facial hair who swans in while you’re gossiping with Lup up at the bar, and you give him your best service-industry smile which he brushes off with a sharp wave. He’s got old rings on his fingers. 

“You’re the new kids, huh?” the Boss says, and everything coalesces. Rings, the suit, the way he walks in like this is his castle. 

“Fuck, you’re the Boss,” you say. “Aw, dunk, shit, I’m on break but I’ll be back on shift in ten?” 

He laughs, sits down at the bar. “No worries, Jimothy tells me you two have been model employees. Hey, make me an old fashioned — what’s your name?” he asks, leaning forward, and he’s very handsome. He’s got eyes like the gemstones you transmute. 

“Taako,” you say as you muddle sugar in the glass. “That’s Lup.” 

“Charmed,” he says. “I’m Darwin.” 

He smiles at you like you’ve got his full attention, like you’re the only thing in the universe. 

And that’s it, you’re in love. Nobody looks at you like that. You’re eighty-six and you’ve never had a boyfriend and you’ve decided: you are gonna seduce the fuck out of the Boss. 

“This is a bad fucking idea,” Lup says. “Like, ‘ko, you know this is a bad idea, right?” 

“Yeah, but I’m gonna do it,” you say to her. You’re lying on her bed, it’s four in the morning and you can hear the rattling of the trolley two streets over, you can hear music from someone else’s apartment. You’re dreaming of Darwin’s fingers and the way they looked as they pressed against the glass, the way his shirt stretches across his chest, the curve of his smile. You’re hung up on metaphors right now — that’s what he does to you. You’ve always liked pretty things. He’s very pretty. He looks like he might think you’re pretty too. 

You explain all this to Lup. “Can’t hurt to get in good with the bossman,” you say. 

“Don’t come crying to me when you get your heart broken,” she says, “into a million little pieces. Plink.” She’s braiding your hair, soft strokes with the brush. “And if you get us fired, I’m gonna set  _ you  _ on fire.” 

“Whatever,” you say, and fall asleep to the rhythm of her brush against your scalp. 

You switch shifts with Lup. You start working the bar with Jeb, who grumbles at first, but you’ve got showmanship sparking from your fingertips, and he grudgingly admits that you’re maybe as good as your sister. You’re good at getting people to like you, when you want to be. Self-preservation. Lup complains about the kitchen, but you know that it’s idle — if she really hated it, she woulda kept scrupulously silent. And Darwin swings by every so often now, says that he’s “just checking on his investment,” with a playful twist of his mouth, and you say “whatever keeps you sleepin’ at night, bossman,” and he laughs. You lean over on the bar. “So what’s the real reason, handsome?” 

You’ve learned all your flirting from dimestore romances. You can’t believe it’s working. He leans forward as well, and he says: “Let me take you to dinner. Not here. Somewhere nice.” 

You grin at him all gaptoothed, and pretend that you’re not way in over your head. “I get off at eight.” 

“No you don’t,” Lup calls from across the room.  

“Yes,” Darwin says. “You do.” 

You’re losing your mind. You’re on top of the world. You slide him a drink from across the bar and say, “Get outta here bossman, I’ll see you for dinner.” He chuckles. You think he likes the way you give him some cheek; everyone else at the joint pussyfoots around him like a sleeping tiger. Darwin takes the liberty of squeezing your hand. “I’ll pick you up,” he says, and drinks his drink in one long slide (admittedly impressive) and walks out. He waves at you as he leaves. 

“Someone doesn’t care about employer-employee abuse,” Lup says acidly. “Lay off!” you yell back, ignoring the customers. “Taako!” Manager Jackass snaps, and you call, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. The rest of your shift is whatever, but you feel like you’re a soap bubble, like you’re floating. 

Darwin takes you out to dinner. Darwin orders expensive wine and tells you to order whatever you like, and you pick the fanciest cocktail on the menu although the shine’s worn off since you started tending bar. It still tastes great. This is the first time you’ve really talked with him, and even though you’ve said you’re in love with him, you’re surprised to find that you like him beyond the superficial. You talk about nothing, about the city, about your sister, about his family, and when you land upon the topic of work, his face shutters. 

“I’m in business,” Darwin says, with a grimace. “I’d prefer to skirt the subject.” 

“Cool, well I’m in bartending,” you quip. “So let’s skip the work talk entirely, yeah?” 

Something about his expression softens. You like this, you realize, the way that you can make him melt. 

He doesn’t take you home with him that night, which you were sort of expecting, you had condoms in your pockets and everything. He doesn’t take you home with him the next night, or to the bathroom when you coyly suggest a  _ work break _ when he swings by. Darwin’s gentlemanly to the point of infuriation, telling you that he wants to take it slow, that he wants the thing between the two of you to be something real, and you don’t tell him that you’ve known him three weeks and that he knows more about you than anyone else, — except Lup. You don’t tell him that you’re a cagey bastard cause you’re not one around him. 

You learn what Darwin does by osmosis. He never talks about business with you, but it leaks through the cracks in his sentences. He heads a midsized criminal cabal in the city, he’s got his fingers in a thousand pies, the restaurant is one of fifteen money laundering operations including multiple casinos and high-end joints, and he’s not much one for violence, but he does like breaking heads. He doesn’t like that he likes breaking heads. You don’t much care, either way. That’s not your problem. 

The point is that he’s different around you, and you like that he wants to be different around you. 

Lup tells you to be careful. You tell her you’ve never been careful in your entire life. Everything’s  _ good, _ anyway. Everything’s coming up Taako. You get a raise, and she does too. She goes to the doctor and comes back with a prescription for magically aided transition. You buy a new hat and a new wand that doesn’t sputter one time outta three. You’re two years in the city, now, and you’re making it work. Everything’s...fine. This is the longest you’ve stayed in one place, and you’ve got a collection of cookware in the kitchen taking up way too much of the shelves, a thousand books (ratty magic tomes, paperbacks, etcetera) taking up all the deskspace, and two twin sized beds that got pushed together into a larger one because it was  _ weird  _ to not sleep next to someone else. 

So of course it’s too good to fucking last, and of course everything falls apart when you’re just about to get some dick. 

* * *

The night you later refer to as “the night you almost got laid” starts out  _ great _ . Darwin buys you dinner, and then he looks at you almost shyly and asks if you would like to maybe come home with him. You would very much like that, and he takes you in his fancy car, to his fancy apartment building with a doorman and marble floors, and up to his fancy apartment.

And then he’s leaning over you and you’re lying back with your head pillowed on silk pillowcases and you’re all anticipation and curling fear and this is the closest you’ve been to anyone’s body, you feel like you’re being laid bare. Also you’re naked, which really isn’t helping with your nerves. Darwin is lovely. He looks lovely. He’s looking at you like you’re a  _ present.  _

“Gonna be honest, this is my first time, so you might wanna take the lead,” you say, because you’re suddenly nervous. And he smiles at you like this dumb vulnerability makes you charming and he asks, laughing like it’s an idle question, “Taako. How old are you?” 

You should lie. You should tell him “A hundred and twenty, just been savin’ myself for the right guy,” you should wink and brush it off, elves look the same between adolescence and mature adulthood, there’s reasonable doubt, you don’t act like a teenager, you could lie and just  _ get on with things _ . 

“Taako,” he says, and you’ve been dating for a month and he’s the one who wanted something real. 

“Eighty-six,” falls out of your mouth. The heat of his body on yours. The press of him. 

He scrambles off of you in an instant. “ _ Eighty-six. _ ” 

“Age ain’t nothin’ but a number,” you say. He waves a hand angrily. 

“Why did you let me,” he trails off, implying the whole relationship, the dates, the way he groped your ass and you let him. “I’m  _ thirty five _ ,” he says. “I thought you were, I don’t know, a hundred-thirty, I thought you were an  _ adult _ !” 

“I am!” You  _ are _ , fuck what age you are, you’ve been on your own since your aunt died, you and Lup, and you’re more of an adult than most people twice your age. 

“Gods. You should be, you should be, going to school! At a  _ real  _ job! I don’t know, why are you working at a  _ bar _ ?” It’s more a statement of incredulity than anything else. Later, when you analyze the situation again, you’ll realize that he was hurt, that it wasn’t incredulity but minor despair. But right now,  _ you’re _ hurt. Ten minutes ago you were in love and if you had just kept your damn mouth shut, you would be getting laid instead of having an argument. 

Moonlight streams through the penthouse window. Darwin looks tired, the fine lines of his face illuminated. You would like to reach out and touch him. You want to tell him that none of this matters, that you love him, see, that fixes everything, doesn’t it? That’s what matters, right? That’s what the books tell you. You sit on his bed, against the silk sheets, and you can’t move. 

“Taako. You’re fired,” Darwin says, and that’s his voice all buttoned up. The Boss again. 

If you were older, you’d have something quippy to say here, something fun, something to brush this off and pretend like this whole endeavor didn’t matter to you. But that’s you later, you with a couple of decades heaped on, you who isn’t the elven equivalent of a teenager. 

“Fine,” you say, because you’re eighty-six and your first boyfriend just broke up with you. “See you, bossman.” You put on your shirt. You pretend you’re not sniffling. He doesn’t look at you as you leave. 

You slink out of his fancy apartment, down his fancy elevator, through his fancy lobby. He has everything you wanted as a kid, and you had him for a bit, and now you kind of hate him and you hate everything he has. 

**Author's Note:**

> part two up next week, probably — might end up being a 3-parter depending on how long this ends up being (its already getting pretty long.) 
> 
> liner notes [here](http://anonymousalchemist.tumblr.com/post/172520384147/liner-notes-the-kid-the-future-forthcoming-part/) if you want meta re: this chapter. 
> 
> hmu @[anonymousalchemist](http://anonymousalchemist.tumblr.com/) on tumblr to talk more taako! 
> 
> thank u for reading! leave me a kudos/comment if u feel the desire! (aka Please I Am Always A Slut For Feedback)


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